Beyond Despair
by icynovas
Summary: If he was lucky, they would die before reaching wherever hell this ship traveled to. Oneshot. AU. Sephiroth/Cloud.


Sooo... this is one of the things I planned to write for Halloween. Inspired from the movie Event Horizon, which fucks me up to this day. (At the start it was supposed to be pseudo-sephcloud, but that went out right of the window once I started writing it. I'm weak).

Warning: some disturbing shit (body-horror and such). I don't think I wrote it in a way that does the movie justice, but it's disturbing nonetheless. So... just a heads-up.

* * *

><p><strong>Beyond Despair<strong>

* * *

><p><em>"Mom! Mom!" He ran as fast as his young legs could allow, but despite of it, his mother never stopped walking away. Her pace was smooth and flowing as the simple white dress she wore, a total opposite of their pitch-black surroundings.<em>

_The scene changed._

_He was in his adult body now in what seemed to be a spaceship, his mother in front of him and watching the stars._

_"Mother..." She turned around at that, her smile kind and warm. She caressed his face before she embraced him._

_He felt cold._

_"My son," she said, her sweet voice disorienting to an unsettling pitch, her bronze skin and dark hair turning gray with every passing moment, until the veins became so horrifically apparent - until her hair turned ashen._

_"My beautiful son," she repeated when he pulled away to look at her. Her eyes glowed furious red instead of calm brown._

_He felt so cold._

* * *

><p>Sephiroth's eyes flew open, his breath and heartbeats erratic.<p>

"You okay, General?" It took him a moment too long to realize that the one asking him was Wedge, one of crew-members for this mission they were on.

"I'm fine." It was all due to the Hyper-sleep's effects, he assured himself as he slowly stepped out of the pod, pointedly ignoring Wedge's offer to help him.

Sephiroth frowned when he saw that he was the last one to wake up, everyone already dressed and ready for action.

He was really out of it this time, wasn't he?

* * *

><p>In the year 0002, the JENOVA, Gaia's finest creation of spaceships, was lost with its crew upon passing beyond the planet Nibelheim. Now, twenty two years later, it returned in an orbit near the planet.<p>

"We're here to investigate."

The crew-members looked at each other then, some of them worriedly - as if regretting accepting this mission - and others solemnly.

It was Biggs, the demolition expert, who broke the silence with a loud snort. "ShinRa wants us to only _investigate_? Yeah, I'm not really buying it, General."

Before Sephiroth could say anything about that, an incredibly familiar voice cut him off. "We're here regardless, so it's no use to argue about it." Sephiroth still found it surreal how he was teamed up with Cloud Strife, co-captain of the AVALANCHE, for this mission. How, after all this time, he was once again in command of him.

But the current times were so very different from the past, Sephiroth reminded himself, seeing how Cloud regarded him indifferently, almost coldly as he asked him for more details - a total opposite of the way he used to look at him, bright blue eyes filled with warmth and affection...

_"I think we should forget about all this."_

It was really his fault, though... but he was still undeniably bitter about how quickly Cloud had let go.

* * *

><p>"Oh, wow..." Jessie, the navigator, softly gasped when their intended target was finally in sight.<p>

Inwardly, Sephiroth agreed.

The JENOVA, on all accounts, was simply magnificent, and despite seeing and using newer spaceship models, Sephiroth felt the ship was once-in-a-lifetime miracle.

However, despite his awe, he felt something _else_ pulling him towards the ship, making him impatient and strangely anxious.

But he ignored it all, focusing on the other reason why accepted this mission, a more personal one than just following orders.

The JENOVA was his mother's obsession. She put her all into designing it, into assuring that it would take off successfully.

Even if it meant giving her life away for that purpose.

* * *

><p>The crew divided into two: eight including him and Cloud would explore the ship, while the remaining three: Jessie, Wedge, and Biggs would stay in the AVALANCHE.<p>

"This ship is unreal!" he heard the crew-member behind him exclaim.

Sephiroth frowned as he took in his surroundings, bothered immensely by two things.

The first was that indeed, the ship was well-equipped and designed - so much that Sephiroth theorized it was made for colonization. But how could it remain so functional when there was no one to tend to it? And the ship _was_ empty of its first crew; they were in it for an hour now, and yet they couldn't find any signs of life.

The second was how strangely familiar the whole ship was to him. Sephiroth found himself walking ahead of the team, knowing exactly where to go and where they could find what they were looking for.

This disturbed him to no end, and judging from the looks Cloud was giving him, he was disturbed by it, too. It took three more hours of exploring for Cloud to call it a night, telling the team to go and rest - each in one of the many rooms the ship had. Soon enough, the two of them were left alone, and Cloud immediately took the chance to ask, "You alright?"

"I'm fine." With every step he took, some sort of a ringing sound intensified, and he felt the urge to find the source of it _now_. He didn't answer when Cloud trailed behind him, asking where he was heading off to all of a sudden.

* * *

><p>His feet led him to the Data Room. Sephiroth took a cursory look around before spotting the most promising lead to the mystery of the ship: the log.<p>

Quickly clicking it on, he waited a moment for the static to clear to see what he concluded to be the final log; judging from the date it was ordered with.

The last distress-call the ship sent...

His eyes widened at the scene he saw forming on the screen, of him as a child and running across the house he lived in his childhood after his mother.

_"I'll come back."_ He last heard her say.

The static reappeared, and he saw Hojo, for once not sneering at him when he cried, instead bowed over the phone as he was told that his wife wasn't coming back.

_"It's your fault,"_ Hojo simply said, calmly - too calmly - upon seeing Sephiroth's tear-stained face.

The scene changed yet again.

His mother, dark wings spread, her hair untied and pale, and the crew-members' lifeless bodies around her. She didn't hold a weapon and her suit was free from bloodstains, but the indifferent way she regarded her surroundings was telling.

_"Let's go home..."_

"Home," Sephiroth repeated, scenes and whispers and screams flashing in his mind's eye.

His mother smiled.

* * *

><p>"Where the hell did he go?" Cloud mused aloud, still bewildered at how strangely Sephiroth had gone out of his sight. One moment, he was walking in front of him and the other, he wasn't there.<p>

He looked for Sephiroth all over instead of resting - the sensible thing to do. Cloud would've berated himself for caring so deeply about a man who didn't want anything to do with him if he wasn't so worried.

Their relationship wasn't founded on the most solid ground. They lost a mutual dear friend and took comfort from each other when everyone else didn't seem to care. He got too attached along the way so Sephiroth opted to break their arrangement off.

Cloud remembered feeling numb as he shrugged, telling Sephiroth that it was alright and good that they were moving on.

Funny how much of a lie that was.

"Sephiroth...?" Cloud asked upon hearing the sound of footsteps nearing him. It _was_ Sephiroth, but there was something off about him. "Are you alright?" he asked for the second time since coming here.

Sephiroth looked at him then, as if he suddenly realized he was there. "I'm fine, Cloud."

Cloud didn't question why Sephiroth was addressing him with his first name in the place of the last - like he always did, even during their time together. "Where were you by the way?" he asked instead, as casually as he could muster.

"The Data Room."

"Oh, so you found it." And how the hell did he find it? "Saw anything of worth?"

The ship's lights flickered out as Sephiroth answered, "Yes."

* * *

><p>The way the JENOVA was set with everything - down to fully-furnished rooms - honestly surprised Cloud. He was so used to small, commercial ships that barely survived getting out of Gaia's atmosphere. And while the AVALANCHE was better-built, it wasn't exactly the most comfortable.<p>

He spent an entire hour in the room he chose, simply savoring the softness of the mattress, before the door opened.

An overwhelming sense of deja vu struck Cloud as he watched, body now leaned on elbows, Sephiroth approach the bed, his expression unreadable.

_Just like that first time..._

And just like that first time, Sephiroth laid himself next to him, burying his head in the crook of Cloud's neck. Cloud found his fingers moving on their own to gently stroke the river of silver that was Sephiroth's hair.

Just like that first time, Sephiroth pulled away after a seemingly endless time, moving closer to place a soft kiss - almost tingling in its softness - before the following one almost made his lips bleed. Cloud didn't resist, couldn't even imagine doing so. He couldn't stifle a groan when Sephiroth ground his hips to his own, couldn't hide the passion as he cried out the other's name when his cock was consumed by slick heat. Words quickly ceased to have a meaning between them, taking each other in an almost obsessively frenzied manner.

(... but there were still so many things different; Sephiroth's _green green green_ eyes, his possessive touch, how the way he sighed his name made Cloud shudder in both pleasure and dread all at once...)

Just like that first time, Cloud woke up all alone.

"It's a dream. Just a dream," he told himself, not daring to think it was real - maybe back then, but now, all he had were memories - until he saw the hand-print on his throat, the bite marks on his shoulders and his still swollen, bloodied lips, and remembered slit green eyes becoming lidded when Cloud dug his nails into a smooth back in retribution.

* * *

><p>The moment Cloud got out of his room, he heard the faint sound of dripping. Thinking it was a leak that needed to be fixed, Cloud followed the sound, breath coming in a sharp gasp upon reaching the source of it.<p>

In front of him, a person was hanged by the legs. What was left of their blood dripped from their torn forearms and head onto the pool that formed beneath them.

"What... the fuck?" Cloud found himself asking aloud, too horrified to feel sick. It was a fellow crew-member he was seeing before him, it was someone with friends and family and loved ones... someone who was his responsibility, but was now too mutilated to even recognize anymore.

_"I'll never let anyone die, not on my watch."_

So much for not letting the past repeat...

He tightened his hold on his rifle - a weapon he thought he'd never use in this mission - and calmed himself. This wasn't the time to breakdown.

It was the time to find out what happened and make whoever did this pay.

* * *

><p>"Any news?" Biggs asked, bored out of his mind.<p>

Jessie shook her head, frowning. "No, not since they arrived."

"Thirty seven hours had passed. You think we should go there?" Wedge was getting rather concerned. It was unusual to lose contact for this long.

"Nah, you know how Cloud is about safety regulations; he'll kick our asses if we go." Ignoring Jessie and Wedge's disapproving looks, Biggs mused aloud, "I honestly can't figure out who's a bigger control freak between him and Barret." It still nagged on Biggs's mind, however, that Cloud would never let them wait like this.

"I'm picking something!" Jessie exclaimed, attentively listening through her headphones. "It's Cloud..."

"What's he saying?" Wedge and Biggs asked in one.

Instead of answering, Jessie made them listen.

Cloud's voice was barely heard through static.

_"... send help ... here. Please..."_

It was hard to believe that Cloud - their cool, aloof, kind of a little shit Cloud - would plead like that for help.

The three of them looked at each other then, their choice already decided.

"Guess we're gonna have our asses kicked." Biggs pretended to sigh in annoyance, even as he thoroughly prepared his weapons and bombs.

* * *

><p>"What the hell happened here?" Jessie was the first to break the silence upon seeing blood - mixed with <em>something<em> they didn't have nerve to guess what it was - covering the ship's pathways.

The more they got into the ship, the more grotesque the sights they saw became.

Six different bodies, fellow crew-members, the sheer madness behind their mutilated states leaving them unrecognizable.

"Do you think Cloud..." Wedge started, but he didn't continue, not wanting to think of the possibility.

It was then that they heard the sound of someone breathing heavily - _dry heaving_, they corrected. They walked carefully towards the sound, not willing to give the one responsible the chance to make their fate the same.

When they were close enough, familiar blonde spikes came into view.

"Cloud!" Wedge called out in delight. Despite the bloodied state of his suit, Cloud was alive and well.

Cloud, who was sitting with his head bowed, looked up at that, and strangely enough, he didn't look like someone who was happy to be saved. Instead he looked... angry.

"What are you doing in here?" His voice was raspy, as if he had been screaming for so long.

"Hey, don't you deny that you asked for help now that we came!" Biggs answered defensively.

"No, no,_ no!_ I told you not to send help. I told you to get the fuck _away_ from here!" They never saw Cloud more enraged, more despairing, and they had to ask.

"Cloud... who did it?"

Cloud's expression blanked for a moment before he laughed. A hallow, empty laugh unlike the few genuine ones little Marlene brought out of him.

"They did it to themselves, _right_ in front of me. I couldn't stop any of them." His loop-sided smile honestly scared them. "And they looked so happy, so _relieved_, and I think I'm beginning to understand why."

"Come on, let's get you out of here," he said as he suddenly got up, his attitude seemingly returning to the way they recognized.

They wondered if it was better for Cloud to be among the dead than be among the living.

* * *

><p>The ship turned into pathways, no room or cabin or door in sight. It made Cloud want to give up, and maybe he would have if he was alone, but he wasn't now and that was enough reason for him to continue on.<p>

_Failure. You can't even save one life and you dream about saving three?_

It seemed getting into this ship - _this hell_ - was easy, but getting out of it was impossible.

Finally, after walking for so long, a door labeled 'Data Room' appeared in front of them.

The door slid up, revealing a dark room, the light of the many monitors falling softly on silver hair - one that, upon seeing, Cloud let out a breath he never knew he was holding. "Sephiroth..."

"I see that you've brought guests," Sephiroth mused, not looking at their way.

Wedge was about to step into the room when Cloud held him back. "Guests?"

"Why yes, the others left already. Only you and I remained." The way Sephiroth was acting didn't match that of his deceased crew-mates, and the possibility of there being another kind to the evil he witnessed chilled him to the core.

With one look to the bewildered three behind him, Cloud told them the thing that was on his mind the moment Sephiroth spoke. "_Run._ Don't look back." They hesitated, but seeing the grim look on Cloud's face and Sephiroth's strange casualness, they did as told.

Cloud was about to follow when he found that the door suddenly wasn't _there._

Sephiroth didn't move from his place - even when he had him trapped - and merely turned to look at him. "Trying again? Such determination you have."

"Shut up." Cloud winced as voices and images flared in his mind.

_Brilliant, radiant Zack Fair, befriending a nobody like you, taking you under his wing and dying as your shield._

"Stop assuming a role you aren't made for." It was ironic, how this was the exact same thing Sephiroth said as he tried to comfort him after a horrible nightmare.

This time, though, Sephiroth wasn't saying it with kindness - this man in front of him was not the one Cloud knew and respected and lo... - and it was a reminder that made the last of the foolish hope Cloud had wither.

He didn't know when Sephiroth moved and was only struck by glowing green eyes boring into his own, and it was _fucked up_ that Cloud's breath hitched, his eyes closed, and his heart pounded furiously in his chest in a way that had _nothing_ to do with fear when Sephiroth whispered into his ear, his tongue purposefully teasing the shell and warm breath fanning on Cloud's neck as the words flowed.

"Body, soul, and memories, you're mine."

When Cloud opened his eyes again, he saw Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie looking in concern at him.

"You alright now, Cloudy? You kinda blacked-out on us."

"It was weird," Jessie admitted, "we didn't even get into the Data Room when you told us to suddenly run."

Cloud tried to find the words to speak, but none came into mind except for one. "Sephiroth..."

They looked at each other before Wedge spoke for them, "I'm sorry, Cloud, I don't think he made it."

Cloud only nodded, utterly confused and shocked and dazed as Biggs urged them to hurry up before the bombs he put across the ship set off. "A ship this fucking evil deserves to be blown up to pieces!"

Perhaps Cloud was simply shaken up by the death of his crew-mates and imagined the encounter in the Data Room. What mattered most was that despite of everything, they weren't all going to die here.

He caught the faint glow of green on glass from the corner of his eye as he walked, and his feet and heartbeats stopped when he realized what it was.

His eyes. They were slit, glowing green. _Just like Sephiroth's._

"Cloud?"

He was at the gate linking the AVALANCHE to this ship. He could leave and try his hardest to recover from the nightmare he lived... but.

With quick clicks, Cloud closed the gate, ignoring the shouts of alarm the others let out in response.

"Say hi to Barret and the gang for me," he said, before he stepped away from the gate and into the JENOVA.

* * *

><p>"Pointless to try, isn't it?"<p>

"It is, even in your case."

There were few minutes left before the bombs set off, Sephiroth had a wing and was still alive even after Cloud emptied his rifle on him.

Sephiroth smiled, assured. "We're going."

Cloud chuckled helplessly. "Where?" If he was lucky, they would die before reaching wherever hell this ship traveled to.

"Home."

The JENOVA started moving.


End file.
